Cooperative Chess Coalition (CCC) – Chess Reform? – Women’s World Chess Championship

[Louis Morin]

Re : Re: Cooperative Chess Coalition (CCC) – Chess Reform? – Women’s World Chess Cham

It is possible to castle in Chess960 ? Oh, that's probably why I am just 1800 at this game. :)

After castling, positions of K and R are the same as in classical chess.

Example: Ra1, Kb1, Re1

After 0-0 : Ra1, Rf1, Kg1
After 0-0-0: Kc1, Rd1, Re1

[Jean Hébert]

Re: Re : Re: Cooperative Chess Coalition (CCC) – Chess Reform? – Women’s World Chess

After castling, positions of K and R are the same as in classical chess.

Example: Ra1, Kb1, Re1

After 0-0 : Ra1, Rf1, Kg1
After 0-0-0: Kc1, Rd1, Re1

Can't wait to try it out! ;)

[Tom O'Donnell]

Re: Cooperative Chess Coalition (CCC) – Chess Reform? – Women’s World Chess Champions

Yes, the greats who win again and again are remembered and the flash-in-the-pans are forgotten. Does that alone mean we should simply not allow for any flash-in-the-pan winners ever? If so, where do you draw the line? Taken to the extreme, this thinking means only the top rated player should ever win the WC. At what point do you say, "Oh, that person isn't good enough to ever be called WC, so I don't recognize him (her) as WC."?

I do not know where people draw the line, but I think it is somewhere North of one tournament consisting of a bunch of short matches. No one thinks that the winner of the WSOP Main Event is the world's best poker player. Even the winners don't think that.

But Tom, one of the things spectators like about sports is the competition. They like the fact that an underdog COULD win. The more you take that possibility out of the event, the less people like the event. On the other hand, give the underdog 50% chance of winning, and you have a game of pure luck. What you want is the sweet spot where the favorite wins maybe 66% of the time, give or take a few percent.

Yes, but in a format that is mostly skill. Hockey, basketball and baseball, for example, have multi-game playoff series, after long regular seasons which help minimize the luck factor. They don't just pick the two most skilled players and have them shoot the puck at the net a few times to decide who wins.

Well, duh! But maybe Ushenina will become one of the next female greats in chess, and the knockout event gave her the chance to leapfrog over the female competition much quicker than she would otherwise have done. And her opponent in the final match too. Women's chess is still in its infancy.

The women's knockout format is maybe the first inkling of change that could improve not the game itself, but the framework that encompasses organized chess events. But perhaps a 2-game match is too drastic a move, too much of a luckfest (if such a thing could ever exist in standard chess). So maybe it should be fine tuned a bit: instead of a 2-game match, make it first to win 2 games. That way you can't win with White and then draw with Black to win the match.

Women world chess champions have been around for decades. Choosing a world champion via a lottery format is silly.

No one tracks the number of people who may have watched the entire final table of the WSOP Main Event, of course, because the broadcast is spread over many hours, but here's an interesting insight from http://www.carbonpoker.ag/blog/wsop-...s-increase-21/
and I point especially to the second paragraph:

"There’s good news regarding the WSOP Main Event since TV ratings showed a big spike when compared to last year’s ME. According to the Nielsen Ratings, the 2012 Main Event averaged a 0.7 rating (664,000 households) for each two-hour broadcast, and these broadcasts ran from the middle of August to October 23rd. This is a 17% increase from the 2011 Main Event, which generated a 0.6 rating (549,000 households).

Another interesting point of the TV ratings report is that a large part of the Main Event final table drew a 0.6 rating (632,000 households). This rating was for the first nine hours of three-handed play, and it’s particularly impressive when you consider that Hurricane Sandy happened right before the final table. Hurricane Sandy prevented many people on the East Coast from being able to watch ESPN’s coverage of the WSOP.

This marks yet another successful year of WSOP coverage for ESPN, which has carried the event from 1988-1998 and 2002-2012. The three-year gap represents a short period where the Travel Channel aired the WSOP Main Event; however, it switched back in 2002, just in time for the “Poker Boom” that began when Chris Moneymaker won the 2003 WSOP Main Event."

What's interesting in this is that ratings stayed up even when it was down to 3-handed play, even though that portion dragged on for many hours and thus the "thinking part of the game", as you put it Tom, would have been going on both longer and more often. Maybe the viewers actually LIKE the thinking part of poker?

That can't be said for chess, unless you're talking about chess playing viewers. The non chess playing viewers are turned off by complicated board positions and long thinks, even if there is a very good commentator explaining all the finer points. Thus, if ESPN were to broadcast even the men's chess WC, with good commentary and diagrams, it would be lucky IMO to draw 6,000 households, 1% of the poker viewership.

I see sarcasm doesn't travel well via the interwebs. Of course SERIOUS poker players are going to like to see all the action not just the all-in coinflips. Chess will have the same sort of viewership; semi-serious players will watch parts of the games (like they do online now via ICC or Playchess or via londonchessclassic.com, for example) while serious players will sit through the entire thing. It won't be thousands of people, it will be hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions who will watch snippets. Who would have predicted the success of shows like Storage Wars? Are there really millions of people going to storage unit auctions?

BTW, Tom, I thought you might want to see this. It's a listing of Card Player magazine's Player of the Year winners since 1997. To win the award, you have to have had an excellent full year of poker results, so it's a much stronger indicator of the greatness of any particular poker player than the WSOP Main Event. The list follows, and I just want to mention: Men Nguyen has won it 4 times. David Pham won it twice, and T.J. Cloutier won it twice. Everyone else on the list won it just once.

Men Nguyen would not even appear on most people's list of great poker players. Instead, poker greatness seems to be measured by number of WSOP bracelets won, and so Phil Hellmuth Jr. and Phil Ivey top most people's list. You seem to be implying that poker doesn't really have true giants, and maybe that's just a matter of what the media is telling us. From this list, it would appear that Men Nguyen is modern poker's Gary Kasparov:

Winners of the Card Player Player of the Year Award

Men Nguyen (1997) ·
T. J. Cloutier (1998) ·
Tony Ma (1999) ·
David Pham (2000) ·
Men Nguyen (2001) ·
T. J. Cloutier (2002) ·
Men Nguyen (2003) ·
Daniel Negreanu (2004) ·
Men Nguyen (2005) ·
Michael Mizrachi (2006) ·
David Pham (2007) ·
John Phan (2008) ·
Eric Baldwin (2009) ·
Tom Marchese (2010) ·
Ben Lamb (2011)

I think Men Nguyen can be more accurately described as "The Sebastien Feller of poker". Google "Men Nguyen" and there you get to check out all the cheating. No need to even type in poker or cheating to find them. There are probably lots of people who think Phil Ivey and Phil Hellmuth are the best players in the world, and I don't play at high enough stakes to have an opinion that means anything. I wouldn't have thought Hellmuth was, but over the last couple of years he has really had outstanding results. Not just in one event but in a series of events which is how world champions used to be selected. You know, Interzonals, Candidates Matches/Tournaments, World Championship Match. Not coinflips.

[Paul Bonham]

Re: Cooperative Chess Coalition (CCC) – Chess Reform? – Women’s World Chess Champions

To be clear:

1) I am not suggesting that anyone switch to Chess960. I like standard chess fine. I think it is interesting that at least a few of the top players are at least mentioning Chess960 as an alternative. I was simply relaying what GM Nakamura had said. I think it will make Paul Bonham happy.

But why should it always be mentioned "as an alternative"? Why does everyone think in terms of mutual exclusion? There can be standard chess and there can be chess960, all under the umbrella of FIDE. There could be many variants. FIDE would decide (maybe even have membership voting on) what they would support as a variant, and from that point on, organizers are free to offer that variant and have it rated. Each variant can have its own major events. There could be a World Series of Chess modeled after the World Series of Poker, in which all the variants get played and there is a championship for each. The purists can stay with standard chess.

Kevin Pacey, why aren't you thinking in these terms? Forget about computers being superior, some people still want standard chess events between humans. Let the live TV market decide which version is best for the masses.

Well, it doesn't matter, none of this is going to happen. No, Tom, Nakurama and a few others aren't going to change anything unless they grab the bull by the horns themselves. FIDE isn't going to do anything.

I can say it doesn't matter because something else is coming down the pipe anyway. I know, I know, stop talking about it and do it. Message received and noted.

2) Even if Player X had an 80% chance of beating player Y in a two-game match, that person's chances of winning seven consecutive matches is only about 20%. I doubt that even GM Carlsen would have an 80% chance of winning a two-game match against any 2700, some of whom would probably be his opponents in at least the last three matches. The result: chess will have a slew of "World Champions" whom no one can remember.

One has to win 7 consecutive matches to win a tennis major event. Top 128 players in the world compete (maybe one or two "wild card" players).

Roger Federer has done it something like 18 times now. Pete Sampras did it 14 times. Rafael Nadal has done it 11 times. Each match is 3 sets out of 5 and you might get injured, pull a muscle, get cramps, have the flu.

And by the way, Carlsen is about to win his 3rd London Classic title in 4 years. At least 7 other super GMs in each event. What's the math on that, Tom? Maybe the London Classic should be the determination of the World Champion? But wait, Anand the current WC hasn't won the London Classic! I'm so confused...

[Tom O'Donnell]

Re: Cooperative Chess Coalition (CCC) – Chess Reform? – Women’s World Chess Champions

One has to win 7 consecutive matches to win a tennis major event. Top 128 players in the world compete (maybe one or two "wild card" players).

From http://www.tennisserver.com/set/set_05_05.html

"...Each singles event starts off with 128 players and ends up after 127 matches and 2 weeks later with one excessively wealthy winner. Every men's singles event involves about 470 sets, about 4,500 games and about 28,000 hard-earned points. An army of volunteers watches every point, records the details and enters the information on the official web site. Not many people actually take any notice of the statistics of whole events, but consider the following.

...At Wimbledon, those 128 men hit about 4,700 unforced errors every year. At the French Open, those same players hit about 16,500 unforced errors every year. ..."

So at Wimbledon 4700 UEs/127 matches is about 37 UEs per match. Even 1800s are not going to make that many mistakes in a chess match of two games. Some games between 2700s probably don't have any UEs! It's just a fact that at the elite levels the total number of errors - let alone unforced errors - is extremely small. Also the effect of the error is magnified. You err on move 20 and you have to live with that error for the rest of the game. You shank a shot in tennis and okay you lose a point but at the next point you start with a clean slate, so to speak.

So a 2800 losing to a 2600 at chess is, in my opinion, much more likely than a 2800 losing to a 2600 at tennis. You need more games than two to sort out the difference.

[Kevin Pacey]

Re: Cooperative Chess Coalition (CCC) – Chess Reform? – Women’s World Chess Champions

Compared to you Kevin I think that Paul makes perfect sense.

The main reason I was interested in the idea of double chess replacing chess as the new standard was because double chess has way more legal positions possible than chess (or even some 10x10 chess variant), so computers might not dominate it (double chess) for a long time. I didn't repeat this reason in this thread, as I have mentioned it before, but perhaps I should have, for you Jean. :)

[Kevin Pacey]

Re: Cooperative Chess Coalition (CCC) – Chess Reform? – Women’s World Chess Champions

Here's basically what one CFC governor stated regarding chess960 to myself and some other governors some time ago regarding chess960, and I would have to say that I concur:

Chess960 is a completely different [sport from chess]. FIDE recognize it. It is [in] appendix F of the Laws of Chess. Discus throwing and marathon running are also under the same international federation, but they are two completely different sports.

Chess960 requires its own separate rating system...There should be [proof] that there is [demand] for chess960 competitions. Local organizers [who are enthusiatic about chess960] should organize such competitions to demonstrate that there is a demand.

[Kevin Pacey]

Re: Cooperative Chess Coalition (CCC) – Chess Reform? – Women’s World Chess Champions

I have any number of reasons for wanting a future replacement game/variant for chess to not be dominated by computer playing programs - here are four:

1) The opinion of the general public for chess and chessplayers has arguably taken a turn for the worse since playing programs have become superior to any human player. I can only offer anecdotal evidence for this, such as Mr. Bowers comments on chesstalk some time ago. I would also note that after Kasparov lost to Deep Blue, a subsequent book by GM Yermolinsky noted that Kasparov had done one hell of a disservice to chess, from the point of view of public opinion, by losing.

2) The value of being [human] world champion has been downgraded, along with the prestige value (see reason 1) above).

3) From the point of view of someone not entirely averse to seeing computers at a near equal level to the best human players, I personally feel cheated by the fact that computers have become superior at chess quite significantly due to brute force tree searching. I would much rather see the best algorithms based on mimicking human thought processes in chess as nearly as possible, which was Botvinnik's aim when it came computers playing chess. Indeed, this was originally the goal of plenty of researchers into AI, who held up chess as useful for such a purpose when it came to mimicking human intelligence. Brute force searching could count for far less as far as competitve success goes if a replacement variant for chess had far more legal moves available in a typical position.

4) Fwiw, there is some PR value for chess if the 'myth' (as many chessplayers might call it) of intellect being required to play chess were kept up, which is now less possible with chess as we still know it (again, see reason 1) above).

Btw, fwiw here's link to a study exploring the possible link between intelligence and chess skill when it comes to children's chess:

http://v-scheiner.brunel.ac.uk/bitst...n-finalINT.pdf

[Gary Ruben]

Re: Cooperative Chess Coalition (CCC) – Chess Reform? – Women’s World Chess Champions

Why not ban computers and electronic devices from the playing area? They did that with books so players couldn't use them during games.

[Kevin Pacey]

Re: Cooperative Chess Coalition (CCC) – Chess Reform? – Women’s World Chess Champions

Why not ban computers and electronic devices from the playing area? They did that with books so players couldn't use them during games.

I've argued more than once, at least half seriously, that computer playing programs 'cheat' by looking at more than one board at a time, look at opening theory, databases and tablebases. Educating the public to this might have a certain PR value, except that horse has left the barn as far as most people are concerned, i.e. they assume computers 'play' within the rules, which they actually do, since there are rules in place allowing computer playing programs to play (ahem). If those rules were changed, people would still play against computers at home anyway.

Nowadays computers only are pitted against other computers when it comes to actual competitions, unless its an exhibition involving people and machines. Otherwise, computers aren't allowed as playing aids in the tournament hall, and electronic devices may be similarly banned, depending what exactly they can be used for (and cell phones must be turned off).

[Gary Ruben]

Re: Cooperative Chess Coalition (CCC) – Chess Reform? – Women’s World Chess Champions

Nowadays computers only are pitted against other computers when it comes to actual competitions, unless its an exhibition involving people and machines. Otherwise, computers aren't allowed as playing aids in the tournament hall, and electronic devices may be similarly banned, depending what exactly they can be used for (and cell phones must be turned off).

No problem. If the TD catches someone using computer software to help with a game he applies the penalty and simply doesn't allow the person to enter any future events.

[Kevin Pacey]

Re: Cooperative Chess Coalition (CCC) – Chess Reform? – Women’s World Chess Champions

One other possible problem with computers being so good at chess that I failed to mention is that computer analysis, in terms of variations, is at least as good as any human derived analysis nowadays. This cheeses off at least some top players I know of to no end. Nowadays, annotators must use actual words rather than variations a lot more if their writings are to be of interest to many people.

[Gary Ruben]

Re: Cooperative Chess Coalition (CCC) – Chess Reform? – Women’s World Chess Champions

One other possible problem with computers being so good at chess that I failed to mention is that computer analysis, in terms of variations, is at least as good as any human derived analysis nowadays.

Book analysis had the same advantage. Still, a player has to remember the analysis and know how to reply when the opponent varies. The problems with a computers horizon effect should not be underestimated in long strategic games.

[Jean Hébert]

Re: Cooperative Chess Coalition (CCC) – Chess Reform? – Women’s World Chess Champions

The main reason I was interested in the idea of double chess replacing chess as the new standard was because double chess has way more legal positions possible than chess...

Are you aware of the number of possible legal positions in chess ? If it is not enough for you, it will never be enough.

[Jean Hébert]

Re: Cooperative Chess Coalition (CCC) – Chess Reform? – Women’s World Chess Champions

One other possible problem with computers being so good at chess that I failed to mention is that computer analysis, in terms of variations, is at least as good as any human derived analysis nowadays.

The problem is that most humans need verbal (human!) explanations to make sense of all these great computer moves and positions. In that regard even the best programs are useless where sometimes a weak master or even a lower rated analyst can do a useful job.